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BERNE TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WCMH) -- A Lancaster man is dead following a one-vehicle crash in south Fairfield County early Wednesday morning. According to the Lancaster post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Ian James McCoy, 36, was driving a 2013 Fiat 500 north on Horns Mill Road at approximately 2:43 a.m. when he failed to [...]

HILLIARD, Ohio (WCMH) -- Two people are dead after a shooting Wednesday night in a Hilliard apartment complex. According to Columbus police dispatchers, the incident was reported on the 5200 block of Applebaugh Street in The Charles at Riggins Run apartment complex. The shooting was first reported at approximately 7:34 p.m. Both adult victims were [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The American Red Cross of Southern and Central Ohio said they are seeing a worrying trend this year of serious fires at apartment complexes. Red Cross officials say their disaster action team responded to Bairsford Drive early Wednesday morning. They called it a scary scene. The Red Cross said this situation [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The climbing wall at Scioto Audubon Metro Park is closed for the "foreseeable future" because repairs are needed to fix some unexpected damage. “A lot of climbers love to use it and having it closed, it's just like when you’re a kid and you go to the playground and it's closed, [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The state is recommending a maximum sentence for a former Franklin County deputy who was convicted of reckless homicide in the death of Casey Goodson Jr. In a sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday, prosecutors requested the judge sentence Jason Meade to 36 months in prison due to the severity of his conduct. [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A woman has been indicted and charged with murder more than four years after allegedly killing a man. Columbus police said on Wednesday that Alyssia C. Albert, 31, has been indicted on charges of aggravated murder, murder, aggravated robbery, and tampering with evidence in connection with the Feb. 18, 2022, killing [...]

A CBS Sports crewmember was killed last week in a crash while in Dublin covering the Memorial Tournament.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — An 11-year-old girl killed after an alleged domestic dispute was shot four times and sustained additional wounds, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday. According to the Franklin County Coroner’s Office, Aliv’eyah Chandler was shot in the head twice, once in the chest and once in the thigh. Chandler and her [...]

UPPER ARLINGTON, Ohio (WCMH) – A restaurateur who got his start in Columbus is preparing to bring one of his concepts to Upper Arlington.  Next Cool Restaurant Ventures, owned by Rick Doody, plans to open The Arlington Grille at 3150 Tremont Road in the Kingsdale Shopping Center later this year, according to the company. The [...]

Metro Parks has added a 166-acre site to its portfolio, Bank Run Metro Park in Lockbourne, Ohio, which features large meeting facilities, a 100-foot-long slide, and a 5-kilometer trail, and will eventually include a water feature for kayaking, paddleboarding, and fishing.

A cybercrime group known as The Gentlemen has emerged as the second most active ransomware gang by victim count, rapidly attracting a talented pool of hackers through an aggressive recruitment strategy that promises affiliates 90 percent of any ransom paid by victims. This post examines clues pointing to a real life identity for the administrator of The Gentlemen ransomware group.

A graphic created and shared by The Gentlemen ransomware group administrator Hastalamuerte on Breachforums in May 2026. Credit: ke-la.com.

Experts at the security firm Check Point Software have been closely covering exploits of The Gentlemen, a so-called “ransomware-as-a-service” (RaaS) offering that pays affiliates handsomely to help spread the group’s malware.

“A 90/10 affiliate revenue split — compared to the industry standard 80/20 — is accelerating the group’s growth by attracting experienced operators from competing programs,” the researchers wrote in April.

Check Point found The Gentlemen are the second most active ransomware group by victim count so far this year, claiming at least 332 published victims since the group’s inception in mid-2025 and more than 240 in 2026 alone.

According to Check Point, the group targets Internet-facing devices (VPNs, firewalls) as their entry point, and once inside moves quickly to encrypt entire networks within hours.

Check Point says the administrator and primary operator of the ransomware group uses the nickname Zeta88 on the Russian-language cybercrime forums, and that this individual was previously known under the moniker Hastalamuerte. Check Point noted that a breach of the group’s backend infrastructure made it clear that Hastalamuerte/Zeta88 is the person who assembles the locker and RaaS panel, manages payments, and is essentially the administrator of the entire program who receives 10 percent of all ransoms.

WHO IS HASTALAMUERTE?

The cyber intelligence firm Intel 471 shows that the user Hastalamuerte is a Russian and English speaking person who registered on almost a dozen cybercrime forums between 2019 and the present day, including Exploit, Breachforums, Ramp_V2, BHF, Raidforums, and Nulled.

Intel 471 reveals that Hastalamuerte registered on Breachforums in January 2025 from an Internet address in Izhevsk, the capital city of Russia’s Udmurt Republic. Likewise, the user Zeta88 signed up at the English-language cybercrime forum Breached in August 2022 from a different Internet address in Izhevsk.

Intel 471 finds Hastalamuerte registered on Raidforums in 2020 using the email address hastalamuerte1488@protonmail.com (1488 is a common combination of two numeric symbols associated with white supremacy). A lookup on this address at the open source intelligence service Epieos shows it is connected to an account at Apple and to a phone number ending in 04.

Epieos says that Protonmail address is also linked to a GitHub account under the username SantaMuerte. That account is marked private, but a history of this user’s activity shows they are watching and developing a number of malware tools and exploits.

In April 2020, Hastalamuerte said on the crime forum Nulled that they could be contacted at the Telegram instant messenger name @hastalamuerte18, and the threat intelligence company Flashpoint finds this username is assigned the unique Telegram ID number 30907522 [full disclosure: Flashpoint is an advertiser on this blog].

The breach tracking service Constella Intelligence reports that Hastalamuerte’s Telegram ID is connected to another username — “bu4vs” — and to the Russian phone number 79127650004. Pivoting on this phone number in Constella fetches multiple records from hacked Russian government databases showing it is assigned to one Alexander Andreevich Yapaev, a 36-year-old from Izhevsk.

Constella reveals that phone number was used to create an account at the Russian social media platform Pikabu under the name “4apai18,” and shows Mr. Yapaev has signed up at a number of websites using the common surname Ivanov, or else “Chapaev” (the numeral 4 is often used as shorthand for a “ch” sound in Russian).

A search in Intel 471 for cybercrime forum members with the nickname SantaMeurte unearths an account by the same name created in 2020 on the Russian hacking forum Codeby. Intel 471 shows this user originally registered on Codeby with the not-so-subtle nickname Alexandr 4apaev.

Constella finds Mr. Yapaev regularly used the email address bu4vs@mail.ru. Meanwhile, Epieos shows this address is connected to a LinkedIn account for Alexander Yapaev, who lists himself as the head of B2B marketing at the company Uralenergo Udmurtia, one of Russia’s largest suppliers of electrotechnical and lighting products.

Mr. Yapaev did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Nearly every time we publish one of these Breadcrumbs stories, readers are curious to know why it seems like so many cybercriminals from Russia apparently do little to hide their real life identities. The truth is that — Russian or not — most didn’t exactly set out to be arch criminals, but instead got drawn into the scene gradually over several years as their skills broadened and sharpened.

Another important dynamic is that the Russian government generally either co-opts or ignores cybercriminal activity within its border so long as the hackers do not steal from or attack Russian businesses and citizens. As a result, successful cybercriminals in Russia are usually insulated from prosecution and arrest by foreign law enforcement agencies provided they occasionally pay off the right people and do not travel abroad. And cybercriminals who intend to strictly adhere to those unwritten rules may (at least initially) be less concerned about covering their tracks online.

But the simplest explanation is that cybercriminals of all nationalities tend to make a number of basic operational security mistakes early in their careers, when they are less savvy and have far less to lose by their carelessness. A review of Hastalamuerte’s early posts on the crime forums (circa 2019-2020) shows a relatively unsophisticated and low-skilled hacker still trying to learn the ropes and earn a positive reputation on these communities.

For example, in June 2020 Hastalamuerte’s Telegram account joined a multi-month training program (@pntst) to learn how to use popular penetration testing tools, and their candid posts to this hacker training camp show Hastalamuerte struggling to use these tools effectively. A Google-translated record of Hastalmuerte’s posts to @pntst is here.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A person riding an electric bike is fighting for their life after being struck by a vehicle, which fled the scene in Downtown, Columbus Tuesday night. According to a Columbus police incident report, a person was operating an Electric-Bike, heading north on South High Street at the Mound Street intersection. The [...]

MASON, Ohio (WCMH) -- Kings Island on Monday introduced memberships that vary slightly from traditional season passes. The amusement park, which is owned by Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, has two levels of membership -- gold and prestige. Unlike traditional season passes, the new memberships are on a 12-month basis from the date of purchase. Season [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Franklin County's specialized docket funding decreased by $50,000 in 2026, leading to the resignation of a long-term employee. Laurie Arsenault, the Franklin County prosecutor's chief counsel of the innovation unit, resigned in April after 25 years with the office, citing concerns about decreased funding for specialized dockets. A representative for Prosecutor [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A woman has filed a lawsuit alleging Columbus police allowed her 1994 rape case sit idle for decades despite leads she provided, ultimately contributing to the dismissal of charges against the suspect after his eventual arrest. The woman, identified in the lawsuit by the pseudonym Jane Doe, filed the legal action [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Three people were hospitalized after a two-alarm fire broke out in the far east side of Columbus Wednesday morning. According to Columbus Fire Lt. Nicholas Davis, crews were alerted to a fire at an apartment building in the 1900 block of Bairsford Drive, just after 2 a.m. Before firefighters arrived, a [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Less than a week after Ohio State settled lawsuits with all but one of the survivors of university physician Richard Strauss' sexual abuse, another deposition was released. On June 3, the Ohio State University Board of Trustees announced a $100 million settlement with 279 of the 280 survivors who had been [...]